Even as OtherSide Entertainment's spiritual sequel to the Ultima Underworld series inches ever so much closer to getting funded on Kickstarter, it has already managed to get approved by the Steam Greenlight community. While this is good news for those interested in what former Looking Glass Studios developers are capable of creating, the team still needs to raise $111,883 to hit its base crowd-funding goal of $600,000 on Kickstarter.

OtherSide Entertainment has launched a crowd-funding campaign on Kickstarter for a spiritual sequel to Ultima Underworld called Underworld Ascendant. The campaign has already generated $142,104 of its $600,000 goal with 29 more days to go.

Bethesda Softworks is giving away its classic CRPG Elder Scrolls: Arena for PC away for free. All you have to do is visit the official site for the game at www.elderscrolls.com/arena and find the download link.

Elder Scrolls: Arena is the first game in Bethesda's popular RPG series. Its success would spawn such sequels and spin-offs as Daggerfall, Battlespire, Redguard, Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim - and coming soon to PS4 and Xbox One - The Elder Scrolls Online.

Nintendo UK's Twitter account has some bad news for Tetris fans. According to a recent tweet, the Gameboy version of the classic puzzler will be yanked from the 3DS eShop at the end of the year (December 31). Nintendo UK also revealed that Tetris Axis is also getting yanked.

GOG.com is giving away what is commonly referred to as "Ultima 0," the very first role-playing game from Richard Garriott. Akalabeth: World of Doom is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux as an early Christmas gift from Garriott and GOG.com. It joins GOG.com's other free games created by Garriott including Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar, Worlds of Ultima: The Savage Empire, and Ultima Worlds of Adventure 2: Martian Dreams.

Developer Double Fine and 2 Player Productions today launched Devs Play, a new video series that pairs game developers with popular and classic games. Devs Play is described as a "Let's Play" series that combines classic video game titles with notable developers who provide running commentary on the games they are playing.

Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick, the creators of the classic 2D point-and-click adventure game Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island (and many other games over the years) have something to celebrate today: their latest endeavor, a classically-styled 2D point-and-click adventure game project called Thimbleweed Park has been fully funded via a highly successful Kickstarter campaign. The game managed to raise $626,250 from 15,623 backers when it finally ended eerier today.

The Linux, Android, and iPhone versions of Baldur's Gate 2: Enhanced Edition will be released December 16. Baldur's Gate 2: Enhanced Edition was released last year at around this same time for PC, Mac and iPad. Linux support will be added via Update 1.3, which will also include lots of bug fixes, better pathfinding, improved multiplayer, German and Spanish language support (and a few other languages), an option to increase font size, and much more.

Ralph H. Baer, the man recognized as the father of video games, passed away on Saturday at his home in Manchester, New Hampshire at the age of 92. Baer created the very first video game system - the Magnavox Odyssey. It was patented in 1971 and launched in the summer of 1972. It sold 130,000 units the first year.

Julian Gollop, best known as the creator of the popular X-COM series of tactical strategy games, has launched his latest game on Steam Early Access. The game is called Chaos Reborn and officially launches on Steam Early Access for PC, Mac, and Linux on December 9 for $19.99. Chaos Reborn is sequel of sorts to the cult classic 1985 ZX Spectrum strategy title Chaos: The Battle of Wizards. This turn-based strategy role-playing game lets players control a wizard who casts spells to summon creatures for an army to use against AI controlled opponents and other players.

Ultima series creator Richard Garriott and his game development studio Portalarium announced that its crowd-funded, online-focused RPG for PC Shroud of the Avatar is now available via the Steam Early Access program.

Portalarium says that the Early Access program gives players the chance to try out the game as it continues to evolve. Shroud of the Avatar has already raised more than $5 million from public crowd funding efforts on Kickstarter and via the game's official web site.

The City of Alamogordo, New Mexico has generated $37,000 selling 100 Atari 2600 games on eBay that were unearthed as part of the Microsoft Xbox Entertainment Studios documentary on Atari's failed history and rumors (which turned out to be true) of a massive video game graveyard in the New Mexico desert earlier this year.

The thousands of game cartridges unearthed are currently under the watch of the Tularosa Basin Historical Society and being stored at the New Mexico Museum of Space History in Alamogordo.

While Microsoft's Xbox division has closed its Xbox Entertainment Studios, there is one property it produced that will see the light of day near the end of this month. Microsoft announced today that the Atari: Game Over documentary will be released on November 20. The project between Microsoft and Lightbox will debut on Xbox Live and xboxvideo.com. The film chronicles the quest of film makers to either prove or disprove an urban myth: that a massive graveyard of old Atari 2600 cartridges existed in a New Mexico dessert. Spoiler alert: it's true.

Duke Nukem series creator and innovator of the once popular shareware model for PC Games 3D Realms is back in business as of today. The company effectively went dark five years ago and displaced an entire staff due to financial troubles. In early 2014 Danish firm SDN Invest acquired the company.

Japanese developer Westone Bit Entertainment is facing bankruptcy after nearly 30 years in business according to a report in Game Watch Impress (as translated by Sega Nerds).

Westone is best known for creating the 1986 8-bit hit Wonder Boy (released in America as Adventure Island) and the popular Monster World series released on the Sega Master System, Sega Genesis, and TurboGrafx-16.

GamesBeat Editor-in-Chief Dan "Shoe" Hsu announced this morning that he is leaving the publication for a new and undisclosed opportunity outside writing about games.

"After almost two decades as a game-industry journalist/critic/writer/editor, I decided it was time to move on and try something new," Hsu wrote on GamesBeat. "Friday, Oct. 3 will be my last day as GamesBeat’s editor-in-chief, and I am leaving video game media altogether."

The makers of the open-sourced emulation software program, RetroArch are the latest to say that video games accessories company Hyperkin is using its program in violation of the GPL license. RetroArch uses a development interface called "libretro" that allows for the "easy creation of emulators and games that can plug straight into this program called RetroArch." It supports 15 different hardware platforms including Android.

Sony announced that almost 700 games will be available on PlayStation TV when it launches in Europe and North America later this year. The PlayStation TV is a micro-console originally made for Asia that allows streaming of PS4 games to another HD in your home, as well as select PS Vita, PSP, and PS One classic games.

The city of Frisco, Texas plans to invest $1 million to bring the Videogame History Museum to town. Founded as a non-profit in 2009 by John Hardie, Sean Kelly, and Joe Santulli, the Videogame History Museum has spent years collecting vintage game software, consoles, and memorabilia to build what some call the "most comprehensive collection of video game memorabilia" ever assembled and share it with the world. The group often loans out parts of its collection to museums and traveling exhibits, but organizers have been hoping to give it a home of its own for a long time.

Earlier this week the Alamogordo City Council (Alamogordo, New Mexico) voted 7-0 to sell the 800 Atari games excavated as part of the Xbox Entertainment Studios documentary on Atari's video game graveyard earlier this year.

The City Council plans to auction off at least half of the 800 Atari games on eBay and on the council's web site. The games are currently under the watch of the Tularosa Basin Historical Society and being stored at the New Mexico Museum of Space History in Alamogordo.

If you know what an NES is then you are probably pretty old. The 31-year-old system was the subject of the latest episode of The Fine Bros' popular YouTube series, "Teens React." The new video, "Teens React to NES," features Game of Thrones actress Maisie Williams and other teens trying to figure out what the little gray box was. Some thought it was a VCR, despite the actual name of the product prominently written in red on the front of the system.

Jagex, makers of the long-running fantasy MMORPG RuneScape, are highlighting what it calls "the continued success of RuneScape Bonds." Since their launch, Bonds have enabled players to access premium membership content, exchange them with other community members for in-game items and wealth, and gift them to friends around the world.

Firaxis Games will hold its first-ever fan event called "Firaxicon" at the Embassy Suites Baltimore (Hunt Valley, Maryland) on September 27 and September 28. Tickets for attending the two-day event will cost you $40. Tickets are described as "extremely limited," so get them while you still can.

Attendees will be able to meet members of the Firaxis Games team, enjoy a special "Evening with Sid Meier" presentation, get some hands-on time with the upcoming PC game Civilization: Beyond Earth and get a tour of the Firaxis Games office.

Last week Activision teased the return of Sierra, the once powerful publisher of such hits as King's Quest, Police Quest, Guest for Glory, and many other popular video games. Today we learn that Sierra will return as a publishing label under the auspices of Activision Publishing.

This one's for the old-timers among you: A new company has launched made up of former Strategic Simulations Inc. (SSI) employees called Tactical Simulations Interactive (TSI). The company features the talents of former SSI veterans Paul Murray and David Shelley, and David Klein. In its early days SSI was known as one of the best war game publishers in the world, but by the late eighties it managed to secure the rights to make Advanced Dungeons & Dragons games.

Today Activision revealed that it will bring back Sierra, the game company that put adventure gaming on the map. Obviously Sierra will likely only be a label under the auspices of Activision, but there's a lot of questions concerning whether Activision also plans on bringing back some of the game franchises that made Sierra a household name like Space Quest, Quest for Glory, King's Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, and many other popular titles.

EA's "On The House" free PC game giveaway for the month of August is the classic space action game Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger. As always you'll have to have an Origin account and the client installed to play the game. To get it you'll need to login to Origin and find it in the "On The House" promotional section (here).

UK-based Dovetail Games announced that it has signed a global licensing deal with Microsoft to develop and publish all-new games based on Microsoft’s popular flight simulation technology. The company said in a press release today that it is currently investigating new concepts in this area and is expecting to bring a release to market in 2015.

Dovetail Games also announced that it acquired the rights to distribute Microsoft Flight Simulator X: Gold Edition via Steam. The new release on Steam will be sold under the name, Microsoft Flight Simulator X: Steam Edition.

The Command & Conquer community has launched a server to keep multiplayer going in a number of C&C games that had been abandoned by GameSpy Technologies, who once provided multiplayer services for the popular PC real-time strategy games. According to this Eurogamer report, users interested in playing online can visit C&C: Online, register with Revora and install a launcher which emulates GameSpy servers.

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ZippyDSMlee: .....win8 hates any left over hidden install partitions from other version of windows....only waste 5 hours finding that out...its ahrder than you think keeping up with 4 or 5 HDDS......03/03/2015 - 4:44am

Matthew Wilson: I am going to pax east, any games you guys want me to check out?03/02/2015 - 11:23pm

ZippyDSMlee: No one remembers the days of Cinemagic and Cynergy eh? :P, meh even MGS is getting to film like....03/02/2015 - 8:44pm

MechaTama31: I was about to get all defensive about liking Metal Gear Solid, but then I saw that he was talking about "cinematic" as a euphemism for "crappy framerate".03/02/2015 - 8:29pm

prh99: Just replace cinematic with the appropriate synonym for poo and you'll have gist of any press release.03/02/2015 - 5:34pm

Monte: Though from a business side, i would agree with the article. While it would be smarter for developers to slow down, you can't expect EA, Activision or ubisoft to do something like that. Nintnedo's gotta get the third party back.02/28/2015 - 4:36pm

Monte: Though it does also help that nintendo's more colorful style is a lot less reliant on graphics than more realistic games. Wind Waker is over 10 years old and still looks good for its age.02/28/2015 - 4:33pm

Monte: With the Wii, nintnedo had the right idea. Hold back on shiny graphics and focus on the gameplay experience. Unfortunatly everyone else keeps pushing for newer graphics and it matters less and less each generation. I can barely notice the difference02/28/2015 - 4:29pm

Monte: ON third party developers; i kinda think they should slow down to nintendo's pace. They bemoan the rising costs of AAA gaming, but then constantly push for the best graphics which is makes up a lot of those costs. Be easier to afford if they held back02/28/2015 - 4:27pm

Matthew Wilson: http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2015/02/28/the-world-is-nintendos-if-only-theyd-take-it/ I think this is a interesting op-ed, but yeah it kind of is stating the obvious.02/28/2015 - 2:52pm